“A difference of age, you mean?”

“Of age. Or other things.”

A delicate question, he thought, but sensible. She was right to raise it. After all, he was an aristocrat, and she, though rich, was a woman of the bourgeoisie. Such a difference in traditional France was still huge.

“I think that if there is affection, mademoiselle, and mutual respect, and if people have interests in common, then the differences can be solved as long as both parties make compromises. And compromise comes from affection.”

She nodded thoughtfully. Then she smiled.

“What you say seems very wise, monsieur.”

The chapel was a baroque masterpiece, dedicated to the medieval king Saint Louis.

“In the latter part of his reign,” Roland remarked, “the Sun King became increasingly religious.”

“And this was entirely thanks to his second wife, Madame de Maintenon,” Marie added cheerfully, “who was a good moral influence on him.”

Roland laughed.

“She’s quite right, of course,” he told Fox and Hadley. “No doubt every man needs a wife to give him moral guidance. But Louis XIV certainly did!”

Fox, however, did not seem to share their amusement. He nodded thoughtfully, but pursed his lips.

“You must forgive me if I can’t be so enthusiastic about the religious feelings of Louis XIV. It was those feelings that made him kick my family out of France.”

Roland looked at him in surprise.

“You’re a Huguenot?”

“We were.” Fox turned to Hadley to explain. “You’ve probably heard of the Huguenots, as the French Protestants were often called. We lived in France protected by an act of toleration known as the Edict of Nantes. But then in 1685, Louis XIV revoked that protection and told the Huguenots to convert. About two hundred thousand escaped, many of them going to England. My family was one of those.”

“But you haven’t got a French name,” Marie said.

“No. Some of the English Huguenots kept their French names. But others translated them into English. A family called Le Brun, for instance, became Brown. And Renard translated to Fox.”

“Your name was Renard?” said Roland with sudden interest.

“Yes. It’s quite a common name.”

Roland looked thoughtful for a moment. He knew that his family had married a Renard heiress once, a woman of the merchant class—a girl like Marie Blanchard, perhaps. That had been centuries ago, hardly worth thinking about. But it was conceivable that his family could be distantly linked to that of the English lawyer. Did he wish to investigate further? No, he didn’t want to be related to Fox.

“It’s true,” he agreed, “there are many Renards.” And he let the matter drop. “But now,” he announced, “the carriage will take us down to the end of the park where we can look at the charming little ensemble of the Trianons.”